Many different types of ladders exist and are being used for accessing relatively high otherwise out-of-reach areas. Indeed, ladders of all sorts, such as stepping stools, extension ladders, portable ladders, shelf ladders, among others, are now being used in many different residential, industrial and commercial applications around the world for various purposes.
Although ladders work well for the great number of persons using them, ladders are unfortunately involved in a great number of injuries and even fatalities. These mishaps may result from among other things, falls, falling objects, structural instability, electrocution and overloading.
Partly in an effort to eliminate or at least minimize these hazards, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has set certain safety standards for ladders. More specifically, ANSI promotes and publishes voluntary consensus standards and safe use guidelines for many products, including ladders. In the case of ladders, ANSI standards provide detailed specifications on the various materials, construction requirements, test requirements, usage guidelines, and labeling/marking requirements for ladders. For example, ANSI has set forth certain skid resistance requirements for ladders in an effort to reduce the likelihood of ladders skidding or slipping across the surfaces upon which they are being used. Consequently, ANSI standards are an important consideration whenever a ladder is being designed or manufactured.
Another important design criterion for ladders is longevity and their resistance to damage. Thus, ladders are typically made of hard materials which tend to prolong their useful life. However, because hard materials often are associated with relatively low coefficients of friction, ladder rails typically fail to satisfy the ANSI skid resistance requirements. To allow for an ANSI-compliant ladder rail, among other reasons, the end of a ladder rail is usually covered with either a ladder boot or a ladder shoe, either of which provides increased skid resistance for the ladder rail.
Although current ladder boots and ladder shoes are both able to increase a ladder rail's skid resistance, they are not without their drawbacks. For example, existing ladder boots are made from a single material, which is usually a soft material such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), having a relatively high coefficient of friction associated therewith. Unfortunately, however, soft materials are more susceptible to wear and tear such that ladder boots made therefrom have relatively short useful lives. Indeed, a ladder boot made of a soft material can be worn down in an especially short period of time if the ladder boot is frequently dragged across a floor when the ladder is being moved. Once the ladder boot is sufficiently worn, the ladder boot should be timely replaced otherwise a ladder user may fall should the ladder having a worn ladder boot thereon slip or skid across the floor. The frequent replacement of ladder boots, however, can involve significant amount of time being lost and substantial costs.
Another problem associated with existing ladder boots is that a substantial portion of the ladder rail will be hidden under or covered by the ladder boot. Consequently, the process of inspecting a ladder rail for wear and tear, stress cracks, and other damage can be rather time-consuming and cumbersome in that the ladder boot must first be removed for the inspection and then put back on the ladder rail after the inspection. Indeed, this problem is even exacerbated for a prudent ladder user who inspects the ladder rails for damage before each use of the ladder and anytime after the ladder has been dropped. Moreover, the cumbersomeness of such a process may even cause some ladder users to unwisely forego the ladder rail inspection altogether, which in turn could lead to additional workplace accidents.
With regard to ladder shoes, the typical ladder shoe only covers a minimal or diminutive portion of the ladder rail and thus provides rather limited coverage protection to the end of the ladder rail. Consequently, ladder rails equipped with existing shoes can easily become and often are damaged, for example, when dragged across a floor.
Although some existing ladder shoes have components which are made out of more than one material, the various components of the ladder shoes are attached to each other by one or more mechanical fasteners, such as rivets. Consequently, during the production of the existing multi-component ladder shoes, the additional step of mechanically fastening the components to each other is required, which tends to reduce manufacturing efficiency and increase production costs. In addition, the upper portion of existing multi-component ladder shoes is typically made from an electrically conductive material, such as aluminum, which can thus expose the ladder user to the risk of electrocution.